Would you like a side of awkward with that bagel?
by cozypancakes
Summary: Shiro and Keith hook up at a random bar. The morning after is always supposed to be awkward, but even this is too much, no? Matt, bagels, and a dead asleep Shiro gives new levels of awkward.


Keith was not in his bed. Considering there were very few occasions when Keith would not wake up in his bed, or at the very least his couch, it wasn't difficult for Keith's sleep addled mind to realize that he was somewhere else. The fact that he was overly warm helped his mind along to figuring out what was happening. Snippets of last night slowly came back to him. There had been quite a bit of alcohol. Lots of teasing from Lance and Hunk. An extremely handsome stranger with a kind smile. Blurry memories of events that had occured in the unfamiliar bed Keith was pretending to be asleep in. Keith was relatively sure that when he opened his eyes he'd find the handsome stranger beside him. Still, Keith forced himself not to get his hopes up. Alcohol mixed with the dark lighting of the bar and his own memory could've made out this stranger to be much more handsome than he really was.

With a too deep breath, Keith finally opened his eyes. He was met with a clear view of the man's undercut as his head was tilted away from Keith. Yet a look at his exposed chest told Keith that his imagination hadn't been lying completely. The man was well built. The scars only adding to his beauty, in Keith's opinion. Thinking about it now, Keith probably said something to that effect last night.

Keith didn't want to get up. The handful of times he'd hooked up with guys, he'd be out the door within twenty minutes of finishing. This time was different and it didn't take a lot for Keith to figure out why it was different. The guy had been sweet. Far too sweet for someone who could've been a total asshole and probably still had their pick of people to go home with. Keith had been staring at him from across the bar long enough to have noticed various people attempt to talk to him. He had watched all of those people move on after a few minutes of conversation. Keith, with some additional liquid courage, had attempted to make his approach as casual as possible. And for whatever reason, Shiro had actually seemed interested. And the conversation wasn't awkward. It flowed so easily that Keith was reluctant to leave without seeing if it had just been the alcohol and promise of sex that had made the whole situation feel so natural.

Keith had been staring so intently at the back of Shiro's hair, that when the bedroom door swung open it almost startled Keith out of the bed. He sat bolt upright and looked over at the door. A lanky guy with glasses stood frozen in the doorway, his mouth hanging open.

Keith felt his stomach drop. _Please, please, don't be the boyfriend._

The man in question looked from him to Shiro's sleeping form and then back at Keith. He started opening and closing his mouth, clearly at a loss for words. He made vague hand gestures that seemed to imply he'd be going now, before turning away into the hallway.

Keith, heart still racing and wide awake now, waited to see if the stranger would leave the apartment. He gave it a full minute for Shiro's possible boyfriend to open and close the front door but no sound came. He gave a wistful look back at the gorgeous man in bed beside him. Apparently, he was too good to be true.

He dressed quickly, not looking forward to the confrontation that was going to take place but wanting to leave his disappointment behind as soon as possible. Keith kept giving Shiro wistful glances. He half hoped the man would wake up and have a perfect explanation for what was going on. Yet again, it may have been a small mercy that he wouldn't have to look at those deep, silver eyes again.

Awkwardly, Keith exited the room and followed the hallway down to the only exit. The boyfriend was pacing around the living room. He stopped once he spotted Keith. They stared at each other for a few beats before the boyfriend lifted his hand in what had to be the most awkward wave in the world. Keith blinked at him. No yelling? No throwing things? He supposed it made sense that a person as nice as Shiro would be dating someone that was too nice to throw a fit when they found out their boyfriend was cheating on them. But then again, Shiro had cheated, so how nice was he really?

Keith stopped his internal rambling to realize that neither of them had said anything for the last two minutes. He was going to have to break the silence and then make a quick escape. "Look, I didn't know he had a boyfriend. I just met him at the bar."

If this was any other situation, Keith would've laughed at the guy's face. His eyes were comically wide and his mouth was gaping again.

"Oh, no," he began, "no, no, no, no." Denial. Hopefully Keith didn't have to stick around for all five stages of grief. "I'm not his boyfriend."

"You're not?" Keith fought hard for the utter relief to not show on his face.

"No, I'm a friend. I was just making sure Shiro was alright. He disappeared from the bar without a word last night."

"Oh," Keith said. That made sense. It wasn't like Lance and Hunk didn't have spare keys to his apartment too. Keith mentally put Shiro's halo back on his head.

"Yeah," Matt responded. He awkwardly looked around the room. "So...you want breakfast?" Keith raised an eyebrow. "I brought bagels and coffee." He pointed a the bags on the kitchen table.

Keith looked back at Shiro's friend. Keith was still hoping Shiro would wake up before he had to leave. And any excuse to extend his time here was welcome. Not to mention Keith wasn't the type to say no to free food.

"What kind of bagels?"

Matt, it turned out, had been friends with Shiro since freshman year in college. And he therefore had a myriad of embarrassing stories about Shiro to share with Keith. It seemed that Matt was intent on sharing everything he could about Shiro before he woke up and interrupted. The conversation with Matt didn't flow as easily as with Shiro, but Keith still found that he enjoyed himself. Matt didn't seem to need very much encouragement or participation from him, and Keith was more than happy with that arrangement.

"So, after weeks spent convincing him we needed to go to at least one frat party before graduating, Shiro ends up passing for a frat boy. They didn't even charge us at the entrance! Everyone was asking what school team he played for and if he was a new pledge and what house he was from. I couldn't believe it. Shiro's a freaking puppy with a bleeding heart and everyone thought that he was one of them. I say it was because of this that people started egging him on to do a keg stand. Shiro didn't even know what that meant! So we have like twelve huge jocks pushing him towards the keg and I'm trying to find a sturdy surface to stand on so I can get a good shot of all this and-" Matt breaks off and looks over Keith's shoulder. "Shiro! I always say you could sleep through a natural disaster. Though I guess you were particularly tired this time."

Keith turned around in his seat. Shiro was standing at the end of the hallway with a horrified look on his face. Keith wasn't sure if he was horrified because he'd heard the story Matt was talking about or because he was simply unable to process how Keith had gotten himself into this situation to begin with.

Both Matt and Keith waited patiently as Shiro decided how he wanted to tackle the situation. "Were you telling him the Six Flags story?"

"Shoot, I should've started with the Six Flags story! I was telling him about the time you tried to do a keg stand."

"That's not any better!" Shiro's voice hit an unnatural pitch at the end of his sentence.

"Well, since you're finally awake, I can take my leave," Matt declared. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Keith." Matt gave him another, much less awkward, wave. "Text me later, Shiro. I'm gonna need all the details later. Oh, and remind me to finish the keg stand story next time Keith. In fact, we should just exchange numbers now-"

"Matt!"

Keith was starting to worry about the deep shade of red Shiro's face was turning. Matt must have had a similar feeling because he walked out off the apartment with no further comment but a huge grin on his face.

Keith gave Shiro a few moments to recuperate. He had his face hidden behind his hands, and Keith found it adorable. He also took the opportunity to let his gaze wander. Shiro had a white T-shirt and loose fitting sweatpants on. Keith was very tempted to stick his hands down them.

An obviously fake cough made Keith remove his eyes from Shiro's crotch. Shiro's face was a much more reasonable red now but he was avoiding Keith's eyes. Right. As far as Shiro was concerned, his one night stand had stuck around for breakfast and an embarrassing chat with his friend. Keith had misread the situation, which wouldn't be the first time.

"I'd thought you'd left," Shiro finally mumbled.

God, this guy was too polite to just kick him out. "Yeah, I got distracted. I'll go-"

"What?" Shiro was finally looking at him again. "No, don't go. I mean, unless you want to. You don't have to go."

"Do you want me to go?"

"No." Shiro seemed to be just as surprised by his speedy answer as Keith was. Keith couldn't keep the smile off his face this time.

There was a beat of silence.

"I drank your coffee," Keith said, lifting the styrofoam cup.

Shiro smiled at him. "I can make more." He walked over to the kitchen counter, seemingly happy to have something to do. His task was accomplished relatively quickly though. Then Shiro hesitantly sat where Matt had been. "I hope Matt didn't make me seem too horrible."

"Not at all," Keith reassured him. "He never got to any of the juicy bits of his stories."

"I've known him for years. He's accumulated a lot of material."

"Yeah, I'm sure my friends would talk your head off too." Shiro looked at him with such a hopeful look in his eyes that Keith wanted to skip social norms and crawl into his lap. "I thought Matt was your boyfriend."

"What! Did he say-"

"No, he just burst into your bedroom earlier," Keith explained.

"I'm so sorry," Shiro said. "He's made it a habit to check up on me ever since the accident." He gestured with his prosthetic hand, as if Keith wouldn't know what he was talking about.

"It's nice to have people who care," Keith commented.

"Yeah, though sometimes they care too much," Shiro said.

"So, Matt made it sound like it was common occurrence for you to ditch him at bars." Subtle, Keith. Very subtle.

"Not at all! It's just...well my friends usually have to drag me out of my apartment, and on rare occasions I let them. They were probably worried because I don't frequent bars that often and disappeared without a word. More coffee?"

"Sure." Keith watched Shiro get up and prepare two cups of coffee. He had a feeling that Shiro could be knee deep in manure and Keith would still have a hard on from just looking at him.

When Shiro returned to the table, he took a long drink from his cup before speaking. "You stayed."

"I did," Keith agreed.

"I...I don't really do this often. Picking people up at bars, I mean. Not that there's anything wrong with that! To each their own. Just that my sex life has been rather limited. It's just...I didn't think you'd be here in the morning. And I was just wondering if there was a reason for it."

"There is a reason for it," Keith said, leaning forward. "I don't usually connect so well with people. But things are...easy with you. I wasn't really willing to just go our separate ways without a way to contact each other later on. If you want, of course. I know someone like you probably has plenty of people to choose from."

"What makes you think that?" Shiro asked. He sounded genuinely bewildered.

"Well, for one, there was like a line of twenty people trying to hit on you at the bar last night," Keith began. "And you look like you live at the gym. Not to mention that on top of that, you're also nice and funny and smart. You're literally a Disney prince come to life."

Shiro tripped over his words. He seemed flustered at Keith's words. Keith's heart clenched out how adorable this freaking Adonis was.

"There's no one else..." Shiro mumbled. "No one else that's caught my attention the way you have."

"Good, cause I like you. So if you don't want this to be a one night stand then it doesn't have to be."

"You're very blunt," Shiro commented.

"So I've been told."

"No, I like it. People tend to tiptoe around me. It's refreshing to have someone be so honest."

"Is this you're attempt to gloss over the part where I said I like you?"

"Yes," Shiro admitted. Both of them started laughing at that. "I don't," he finally said.

"Dont...?"

"I mean, I want...I-can I have your number?"

"Well considering you've had my dick in your mouth, sure, you can have my number." Keith's smirk grew as he saw Shiro hide behind his hands. "I don't remember you being this self conscious last night."

"It was partly the alcohol's fault," Shiro confessed. "And the whole, heat of the moment thing."

"Yeah, I get that," Keith agreed. "So do you want my number or not?"

"Oh, yes!" Shiro looked around the kitchen, expecting his phone to be near him. "It must be in my bedroom."

"Wow," Keith said.

"What?"

"Trying to get me into bed again?"

"No! That wasn't what I meant!" Shiro stammered.

"I mean, this isn't a very good way to convince someone that you're looking for more than sex." Keith stood up from the table and started walking toward the hallway.

"Keith, I really didn't-"

"If you're going to be so obvious-" Keith stripped off his shirt and let it drop to the floor as he continued down the hallway "-I guess I have no choice." The sound of his belt being undone was very audible in the silent apartment. He turned to the right into the bedroom.

Five seconds later and he heard Shiro rushing down the hallway after him.


End file.
